Passion. 22 Years of Passionate Clubbing 1995-2017
In The beginning

Time to take you back, way back in time.

Many years ago in a town not that far away lay a town called Coalville.

A town with a with a Bingo hall, a working men’s club, an ex mine, lots of spit and sawdust pubs and a chippie, it even had a nightclub that had been a dance hall in the 1920’s which had a basement vault that was so naturally cold it once housed dead bodies during the war.

This nightclub had seen various guises of the years including Phase 3, Tiffanys and Central park however in the early 90’s two young entrepreneurs called Eric Schofield and Mark Walsh bought the venue and changed its name to the ground breaking ‘Crystals!’

The music policy was mainly commercial and cheese and as the dance scene was just starting to take shape a new local DJ called ‘Jason Kinch’ (not yet JFK) whom had just returned from five year stint on the island of Rhodes  was commissioned to be the dance music specialist who would play a house set for one hour during the Saturday night session.

Although the refurbished venue had been reaching capacity of 1000 in the opening few months around, figures had dropped significantly buy 1994 and crisis talks led to management looking for new angles to keep the club alive.

Jason Kinch had long been a student of the evolving dance scene and mentioned to Mark Walsh (one of the owners) that the unique layout of ‘Crystals’ was excellent for dance music as the focus and multi levelled platforms was perfect for the new DJ culture.

Mark was also a huge dance music fan and persuaded his partner Eric Schofield to try something new. They commissioned the London promoter of ‘Club UK’ Chris Hall to venture north and be involved in a new club night.

After meetings with the owners and Jason Kinch the venue name was changed to ‘The Emporium’ which would take on Roman Emporium theme due to its Gladiatorial layout and the name of the first ever dance night would be called ‘Passion’ as this tied up with the mid 90’s loved up feel.

Chris used his connections in the dance industry and booked the New York legend Todd Terry to play the opening night and on Friday February 24th 1995 and Passion was born.

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Around 700 turned out for this opening two roomed event, The Arena was the main room (later known as the blue room) and the spa was the first floor above the what was later became known as the white room and had a space where you could see through to the down stairs bar (the redroom at this time was a snooker room and the green room was still a car park)

Jason Kinch played the famous first ever record ‘Alison Limericks – Where love lives’ and history came alive.

The event was deemed a success and the next month, March  1995 saw the launch of Passion on a weekly basis every Saturday.

A very brave move for the owners.

This strategy wasn’t the instant success the owners had hoped for and the first few months were worrying times with numbers well below what was being paid for the new high DJ bill that the owners were not used to: